


More or less than Human

by GracieLauralee



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abuse, Action/Adventure, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Anxiety, Biting, Blood, Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Clothing, Confessions, Crimes & Criminals, Dark, Deviates From Canon, Drama, F/M, Feelings, Feels, Fights, Fire, First Meetings, Friendship, Goblins, Harm to Children, Humor, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Language, Manipulation, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Pre-Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Pre-Canon, Prison, Sad, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Spoilers, Supernatural Elements, Trauma, Vampires, vampire, vampire!Caleb
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26176405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GracieLauralee/pseuds/GracieLauralee
Summary: The darkness of the cell wasn't a problem for them, their eyes shone like a cat's. One pair red, the other wide amber. They didn't so much as blink as they watched each other from either corner of the room. The young guard on duty sat in a chair, as far as he could get from them both, clutching his holy reflect as he shook.If he knew just how scared the two monsters where he'd be laughing at himself.-In other words, Caleb and Nott meet in the cell and Caleb is not human.
Relationships: Nott | Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 19
Kudos: 89





	1. We met...

Nott had been locked in the cell for three days. No food and little water. The hay under her was old and smelled like feces and rotten food when you got close to it, it was also the only thing in the room other than the bucket. 

Nott had grown accustomed to the idea of being killed for the petty crime of stick theft, but what were they waiting for? Had they forgotten she was there, did they decided to not waste their time on a execution and starve her instead? She sat frozen in the far corner of the cell, trying to preserve what little energy she had left. The only thing she had managed to learn about escape in the last few days was this jail was smaller.

It was one large room with four cells in the back behind a desk area, guards were almost always watching. Expect at night. At night they only left one man, a rookie. That was as far as she had gotten. She can't pick the lock, can't squeeze between the bars, she can't do anything. She can only watch and listen, watch gawking children look through the bars and window, and see petty criminals pulled in and out. Leaving without so much as a day behind bars.

She sat and thought, watching from the darkest corner of her cell and hoped for a miracle that she new wouldn't happen. Then the side door of the jail flew open, four crown guard pulling an unconscious red-haired man into the cell. He was bound in a set of manacles and hung limply as they drug him to the cells.

"Put him with the other monster, maybe we'll get lucky and they'll kill each other," Said the lead man, as far as Nott knew.

"Good thinkin'" Said another, grabbing a spear and pointing it at Nott, her scurrying into the corner of the cell even farther at the threat as the cell door was opened. With one swift movement, the redhaired man was thrown into the cell. He rolled twice, ending about a third of the way in on the right on his back.


	2. Not Breathing

Nott watched the red-haired monster for quite a while. Hidden in her shadowy corner as guards joked and ate and switched between patrols. She watched until the guards started arguing over who had to take the night shift. And she watched as all but one left.

Through all that watching she decided one thing. The monster was dead. He had not moved, nor breathed. Which, her starved brain informed her, means he is safe to eat. She could eat raw and rotten meat, a deceased monster shouldn’t harm her.

Once she made her decision and decided the best plan of attack she scurried forwards, legs shakier than they should be and movements less precise. She gave the creature a weak kick, just to make sure. He was cold. Definitely dead, those guards must be more stupid than she thought. He also seemed to be mostly bones. He wouldn’t be much of a meal, but it was better than nothing. 

She pushed and shoved at him, trying to get him onto his back so she didn’t have to rip through his cloak. But something unexpected happened. 

His eyes snapped open with a start and a mumbling of foreign words, blood-red meeting golden yellow in the darkness. 

They both scurried into their respective corners of the room.

“You’re alive!?” The goblin shouted in shock more than questioning. She was holding her small fists out in front of herself as a meager way of defending herself. The monster seemed even more frightened than her. Tucking himself into a small ball in the corner of the room, not facing or looking at her. Only quick glances every few seconds just to make sure she was in the same place. 

He did not answer her question, and no more questions were asked the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone remember this fic? Not me, that's for sure haha.
> 
> Please comment, bookmark, Kuddo, and all that good stuff. I'll be posting once a week for a while so... let's hope this inspiration lasts :)


	3. Nice to meet you

The next day passed with more jeers from the guards than usual. They banged on the bars, laughed, placed bets on who would win once the prisoners fought. Most had decided that the redhaired one would win, and that the goblin wouldn’t be much more than a snack for him.

Said murderous redhaired monster had been cowering in the corner the whole day, hiding from the sunlight shooting through the barred window. And Nott could not see a monster in him. 

Not now and not before. If she was back in the goblin clan and had woken another member in such a way she would have been met with claws and fangs, not them running startled into a corner. And they definitely would not be shivering in said corner hours later. 

So when night fell again Nott spoke for the first real time in four days.

“Hello,” It was soft as a whisper, her voice even more crackly and ruff from lack of water. He stopped moving fully, his breathing stopping once again, still as a statue now. She worried he didn’t hear her, but she didn’t suspect she could make her voice any louder.

“Hallo,” It was just as quiet as her words, and he had an accent hadn’t heard before. But Nott heard it clear enough to know he responded politely, also something a monster wouldn’t do. 

“I’m Nott. Nott the brave,” If he wasn’t going to kill her, or even if he was, she wanted to get something started with him. Maybe he had a way of escaping. 

“...Caleb Widogast,” His breathing started again, and he faced her more fully. His eyes reflected red just like a cat’s. Just like Nott’s reflected yellow. She suspected he could see just as clearly through the moonless darkness as she could.

“Nice to meet you, Caleb,”

“Yes… um- nice to meet you as well,-- Nott,” He stuttered a reply to her. 

“What are you in for,” She asked bluntly. 

“I- uh, what are you here for first?” He countered awkwardly.

“I stole from a noble,” She said, and Caleb nodded to himself, as if it was a common occurrence to be sentenced to death for stealing from someone more important than you. It was.

Nott waited for him to say his part.

“The townsfolk did not like me wandering around,” He responded shortly. 

“So the guards were right?! But you don’t look much like a monster?” She asked, her large eyes squinting as she looked him over closer.

“I am- not human. So I suppose that might make me a monster, just as it would you,” Nott accepted that answer. She understood wanting to keep secrets, and she expected he would understand what she wanted too. Nott glanced at the guard outside of the cell, the same one they had made guard the cell for the past three days. He was long asleep.

“Do you know how to escape?” Caleb looked like he was fully unexpecting that response.


	4. String and Marble

Caleb had many things in the secret pockets of his cloak. And all those things seemed fully useless to Nott. String and a marble would not help them escape, but Caleb seemed sure that they would.

That if Nott managed to get his manacles off he could free them. So Nott retrieved a small rock that had cracked off the wall from a previous, more unruly resident. And she hit at the metal of the cuffs.

They were old and overused and others had tried the same thing. Which meant it didn’t take much, even with the two weak people working at it. It seemed the guards had assumed he wouldn’t be able to break them, or that if he did the cell bars would stop them. 

The second the cuffs fell away with a soft flash of light from the runes covering them Caleb snapped and a cat appeared. Nott’s immediate thought was ‘Food’ but she held back.

Caleb looked at the cat, the cat looked back, then scampered off into the darkness of the building. Its soft feet not even having to try to hide from the sleeping guard. 

“You’re a wizard?” Nott asked, hope blossoming.

“Yes,” 

“Is that why they think you are a monster?”

“No,” She was expecting that, “-Once he returns you will pick the lock and we will escape,”

“They’ll chase us, the noble wants me executed in front of his court,” Nott said sadly. They had chased her for a week before she was finally captured. Caleb thought for a moment.

“Okay-... You will pick the lock and I will start a fire after. We’ll call for help, and the guard will likely run away. Leaving us to ‘die’ in the cell. Once he leaves we will also run and then hide in the trees,” He didn’t want to let the guard leave, he was too hungry to happily allow him to just run away, but the new plan would benefit him in different ways.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” She responds, and it seemed like this might actually work, “And if he does decide to free us?”

“Then we will come up with something else,” 

The magic cat returned a few minutes later with a necklace and a length of wire. He dropped them to the ground, Caleb snatching the necklace quickly, and slipped it around his neck with visible releif as Nott got to work.

-

As expected the guard ran in fear, and Caleb was both disappointed and relieved. 

Nott leads the way to a hidden area outside of the building, easily secreting away in the madness of the fire. 

Caleb finds them a safe place to sleep for the rest of the night and a river to drink from.

Nott hunts the woods and manages to scavenge up a rabbit alongside some nuts and berries that Caleb politely refuses, Nott happily eating all of it.

Caleb sets an alarm in the night with the string Nott had claimed useless.

They both sleep, only slightly untrusting of the presence of the other.

-

In the morning Nott wakes to Caleb silently reading from his spellbook near the river, no fear of the sunlight around him, and she quickly finds another rabbit. He refuses to eat again, this time leading to more prodding from Nott.

In a rush of words, he explains that ‘I’m a vampire, and I don’t require food nor water. I will be fine, you eat,’ She accepts his words easily and eats the rabbit, planning to catch the next one alive for him.

When the meal is finished and their tracks are scrubbed away they both start walking in the same direction together without a word.

And seamlessly, silently an unusual friendship is formed. 

A vampire and a goblin.

A traumatized soul and a broken one. 

Two monsters.


End file.
